Amethyst Review

After Visiting Southwark Cathedral

A public prayer board, small notes asking God to bless
the homeless, the hungry, the helpless, the lonely,
a sick mother, a deceased uncle, a man job-hunting,
carers, peacemakers and more, and one sticks out,
written by a child, early-learning handwriting,
deliberate letters in painstaking ballpoint, on a slant
from the top to the middle of the paper:
Father, please put things back to normal.
A child putting in a request for God to put things back to normal.
A child. A child. A child.
Maybe trouble at home or at school or in the big world,
a child realising the life he or she has been born into,
the years of baby joy ebbing, pampering attention fading,
innocence dissolving, happiness interrupted forever,
giving way to worry, purity stained and now rough-edged.
‘Put things back to normal’ added to God’s to-do list.

Joe Cushnan was born and raised in Belfast. Now retired after a long retail management career across the UK, he devotes time to writing. He has a portfolio of published features, reviews, poetry and short fiction.

Blog: www.droppedthemoon.blogspot.com

Twitter: @JoeCushnan

1.12.19
7.12 a.m.
16 degrees

Prescient wind anticipating the ice, leaves its handprint on the
obsequious water which obediently freezes in place.
Naysayers of the cold, a fistful of chickadees tossed into the bramble, will not
deign to my plans; instead they demand I get busy feeding them.

**

1.13.19
8.23 a.m.
15 degrees

Priding themselves on their size and intelligence, five crows
obey the call, and though hardly a murder, all the other birds scatter
nonetheless. Food is scarce, and the bitter cold continues; the run-off is frozen.
Digging deep beneath dead grass some tiny creature scratches for warm, sustenance food.

**

1.18.19
9.16 a.m.
24 degrees

Projectors of the weather say big snow tonight, the first this winter.
Oleographic flurries overnight have distressed the tops of most branches.
Nothing nuanced about the pond this morning; it is evenly coated perfection,
dusted and nestled in, surrounded by weathered reed-grass, bent, broken, and waiting.

**

1.19.19
9.02 a.m.
29 degrees

Panoply of birdsongs – titmouse, chickadee, cardinal, jay, nuthatch, and
outward from the feeders, somewhere in the woods, a red-shouldered hawk is
naming the world with two syllables — keee-aaah; the morning is
deep-rooted shadows, and the bump-bump of a red-belly in the cedar.

**

2.5.19
7.48 a.m.
33 degrees

Picking the boardwalk instead of the pond this morning,
onward through the woods, the ground a mosaic of leaves
necessary for the crosshatch of broken branches to fall silently;
dim in the overcast, the cedar is possessed by bittersweet.

 

 

 

John L. Stanizzi is author of the collections – Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, High Tide – Ebb Tide, Four Bits, and Chants. His newest collection, Sundowning, will be out this year with Main Street Rag. John’s poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, American Life in Poetry, The New York Quarterly, Paterson Literary Review, Blue Mountain Review, The Cortland Review, Rattle, Tar River Poetry, Rust & Moth, Connecticut River Review, Hawk & Handsaw, and many others. His work has been translated into Italian and appeared in many journals in Italy. His translator is Angela D’Ambra. John has read and venues all over New England, including the Mystic Arts Café, the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, Hartford Stage, and many others. For many years, John coordinated the Fresh Voices Poetry Competition for Young Poets at Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, CT. He is also a teaching artist for the national recitation contest, Poetry Out Loud. A former New England Poet of the Year, John teaches literature at Manchester Community College in Manchester, CT and he lives with his wife, Carol, in Coventry.

Run to the Water’s Edge

All the noise in the world
is something I have said.

I can mumble about indiscretion,
try to blame it on somebody else,

but the fact is (short version)
my underwater song is not

sufficient as atonement.
Let me kneel before you,

breathe in and breathe out.
At least you touched my face.

© Rupert M Loydell

 

Rupert Loydell is a writer, editor and abstract artist. His many books of poetry include Dear Mary (Shearsman, 2017) and The Return of the Man Who Has Everything (Shearsman 2015); and he has edited anthologies such as Yesterday’s Music Today (co-edited with Mike Ferguson, Knives Forks and Spoons Press 2014), and Troubles Swapped for Something Fresh: manifestos and unmanifestos (Salt, 2010).

A Sacred Migration

They arrived from a larvae dimension,
blew past me in a magical blur,
whirling in steadfast discipline,
a zillion yellow, black, and white
migrating butterflies
fluttering in syncopated rhythms.
A series of rapid wing movements
while everything else stood still.

As the Monarchs migrated south,
nothing got in their way.
Not the tall buildings or the oak trees,
or even the dark mysteries crossing the sea.
They were on a sacred mission
to find a warmer place to reside,
to ease their population flow,
and to see the holiest of holy in Mexico.

 

Mark Tulin is a former family therapist from California.  He has a poetry chapbook, Magical Yogis, and two upcoming books, The Asthmatic Kid, and a poetry collection, Awkward Grace. He has appeared in Fiction on the Web, Free Verse Revolution, Leaves of Ink, among anthologies and podcasts. His website is Crow On The Wire.

Dusting

I always believed there was more to praying than kneeling
or reciting a prayer holding hands. In the silences the hidden
prayers came through. Doubts, sighs, a child
giggling in a pew. I always thought that praying
was more about dusting—wiping greasy
fingerprints off glass doors and sweeping up dried mud.
Not the hymns themselves but about placing
the ribbons back into the hymnals. Vacuuming
the altar, sweeping up cobwebs, brushing off the cross.

 

Kim Malinowski earned her B.A. from West Virginia University and her M.F.A. from American University. She studies with The Writers Studio. Her chapbook Death: A Love Story was published by Flutter Press. Her work has appeared in Faerie Magazine, War, Literature, and the Arts, Mythic Delirium, and others.

Keen to eat

(Reflecting on Painting: Talitha Kum)

It is the keening I notice,
news cameras eager to record;
though propaganda can call zealots
when scoped drones are on the loose.

Grief is heartfelt naturally –
the west alone not knowing loss –
despite embassy commentaries
or as heard generals observe.
Timed slot cabled to comfort
seeks simple judgement, poorly served.

Yet professional wailing,
crooning women and men, both,
priests following rubrics
told when to beat their breasts,
Hearts bled to correct formula
sharp-cold paid-for keening crowds,
contracted funeral musicians,
are confusions quick dismissed
in the enlightened sleeping room.

Loud crying easily translates
to put-out laughter scorn.
In synoptics’ column piece –
maybe subtle first lunar case –
sleeping, handed little girl
walks secretly, is fed.

Babbling ivory overlook
denies compassion’s way,
and leads to bleeding from the skull,
this old reality.

 

Stephen Kingsnorth (Cambridge M.A., English & Religious Studies), retired to Wales from Methodist Church ministry, has had pieces accepted by Nine Muses Poetry; Voices Poetry; Eunoia Review; Runcible Spoon; Ink Sweat and Tears; The Poetry Village; From the Edge; Gold Dust, The Seventh Quarry & Allegro Poetry Magazines. https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/

Hiking

The antelope looks at me and then runs off, carrying his world in his head. There are hills behind his eyes, secret fields and backyards only he can visit. Suddenly I am back in my original self, watching him bend his neck down to graze and entering a moment of total thoughtlessness: I am nothing, and the only thing that matters is the eternal instant of the present. But once he spots me and runs away, the trees feel even older than before.

 

Clayton Arble is a poet from Holyoke, Massachusetts.

A Walk Through Orleans Cemetery

Under a parish of birds
headstones limp uphill,
bones arranged in time’s neglect.

Names remembered, Crosbys,
Doanes, and Snows of long ago.
Sea captains, strong wives,
and innocent children,
with lives of storm and joy.

We imagine stories—
epitaphs from the age of sail.

~

Here, lichen covers, damp as sea grass
where all present, set aside
a day honoring a life
prepared for history.

Family by family
arranged in a half-circle,
gathered and stood
shoulders touching
as they laid you down in peace
consoling
and blessing family names as they did.

~

And above,
battered trees watch
then, in an instant

flight,
……..a lifting off of spirit.

 

Writers, storyteller and educator Judy DeCroce, and husband, artist/writer Antoni Ooto are based in upstate New York.

These two creative souls gather inspiration during their morning poetry sessions where they present, critique and revise their work together over a pot of coffee. (Trader Joe’s Morning Blend)

Judy DeCroce, has been published in Plato’s Cave Online, Amethyst Review, Tigershark Publishing, and CultureCult: Nocturne Anthology.
Antoni Ooto has been published in Soft Cartel, The Ginger Collect, Amethyst Review, Young Ravens Literary Review, and both have been published in many others.

They are collaborating on an upcoming book.

December Meditation

When winter stalks into view

let the fringe of day stir,
finches and bluebirds mimicking the sun

let buds shaped like nails
pierce magnolias waxy leaves, blossom

let the lazy buzz of a wasp
remind you that summer soon greens

let dawn’s chill and later flame
fill you with tomorrow’s promise

 

KB Ballentine’s fifth collection, Almost Everything,
Almost Nothing, was published in 2017 by Middle Creek Publishing.
Published in Crab Orchard Review and Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal,
among others, her work also appears in anthologies including In Plein
Air (2017) and Carrying the Branch: Poets in Search of Peace (2017).
Learn more at www.kbballentine.com.